Rock / Alternative / Experimental
Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
WEB
MySpace
30:30 Recordings
Componentes:
Al: vocals, guitar
Frog: vocals, bass
Nelson: guitar
McGreevy: drums
Bio recogida en su web:
Creators of this year’s best indie rock debut; make no mistake, Newcastle’s Kubichek! are a devoutly special band. As incendiary as the intentionally explosive exclamation mark that doorstops their moniker, like all the best bands, they come armed with a musical manifesto – a mission statement if you will – that encompasses their lust for uncompromising DIY punk jitter, noir tinged, New Wave tainted atmos, and feedback swamped melodic sass. Said debut, ‘Not Enough Night’ is evocative of their variety in palate; a record that perfectly plots their brilliance over twelve explosive, contrasting melodic assaults, announcing their arrival to the world with aplomb. It is a stunning debut missive.
Formed from their wreckage of their former band (North East England’s much beloved Parklandsway) - and forged from a mutual love of Idlewild, Mogwai, Fugazi, At The Drive In, Primal Scream, and Sigur Ros – they’re a band for anyone who ever believed in the clang of the electric guitar, the rasp of a tattered voice, and a bellyful of bright, bold, guitar skewed pop songs. Consisting of Alan McDonald (vocals / guitar), Mark Nelson (guitar), Frog (bass) and Chris McGreevy (drums), they’ve long since won the hearts of NME (who’ve frequently juxtaposed the worlds ‘brilliant!’, ‘awesome!’ and ‘vital!’ alongside their name), while the likes of Bloc Party, Zane Lowe, The Futureheads, Steve Lamacq, Maximo Park, and Editors are all committed fans. Kubichek! are your favourite bands’, new favourite new band. It’s likely they’ll be yours too.
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Discografia: AQUI
NOT ENOUGH NIGHT 19/3/2007
Tracklisting
1. Searchers
2. Roman Is Better MP3
3. Taxi
4. Nightjoy
5. Hope Is Impossible
6. Stutter
7. Method Acting
8. Outwards
9. Opening Shot
10. Hometown Strategies
11. Start As We Meant To
12. Just Shut It Down
HMV
Gorth 2 CLIP (Bside of Stutter)
Videos:
Kubichek! - Stutter
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Kubichek! - Nightjoy
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Kubichek! - Outwards
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bio completa:
ResponderEliminarCreators of this year’s best indie rock debut; make no mistake, Newcastle’s Kubichek! are a devoutly special band. As incendiary as the intentionally explosive exclamation mark that doorstops their moniker, like all the best bands, they come armed with a musical manifesto – a mission statement if you will – that encompasses their lust for uncompromising DIY punk jitter, noir tinged, New Wave tainted atmos, and feedback swamped melodic sass. Said debut, ‘Not Enough Night’ is evocative of their variety in palate; a record that perfectly plots their brilliance over twelve explosive, contrasting melodic assaults, announcing their arrival to the world with aplomb. It is a stunning debut missive.
Formed from their wreckage of their former band (North East England’s much beloved Parklandsway) - and forged from a mutual love of Idlewild, Mogwai, Fugazi, At The Drive In, Primal Scream, and Sigur Ros – they’re a band for anyone who ever believed in the clang of the electric guitar, the rasp of a tattered voice, and a bellyful of bright, bold, guitar skewed pop songs. Consisting of Alan McDonald (vocals / guitar), Mark Nelson (guitar), Frog (bass) and Chris McGreevy (drums), they’ve long since won the hearts of NME (who’ve frequently juxtaposed the worlds ‘brilliant!’, ‘awesome!’ and ‘vital!’ alongside their name), while the likes of Bloc Party, Zane Lowe, The Futureheads, Steve Lamacq, Maximo Park, and Editors are all committed fans. Kubichek! are your favourite bands’, new favourite new band. It’s likely they’ll be yours too.
“Three of us were students when we all met,” recalls Alan. “Me and Chris met stacking shelves together in our part time jobs, and I met Frog through a lonely hearts ad – “seeking enthusiastic young musician types with a love for Primal Screams’ XTMNTR, for fun times and regular sessions of noise making.” We hit it off straight away. Frog knew Nelson since the days when they used to play football together in their street as kids, and did their first gig in his bedroom to their parents, rocking out to a Faith No More backing track. I’m the only one in the band who doesn’t like Faith No More. When they come on in the van I want to throw myself out the window and walk the rest of the way…”
Faith No More aside, perhaps the vitality and zest of Kubichek!’s music can be put down to their zeal for music at large. That their very being resonates so deeply in the hearts of their fans (as a band who understand the necessity and importance of getting in van, playing, getting in van, playing some more, the Newcastle group snared the hearts of fans night after night last year), it’s testament to their adoration of sound and song that before they’re musicians - and before they’re songwriters – fitting with their keen, uncompromising, heart-on-sleeve DIY ethos – Kubichek! are fans of music.
“It took us about 2 years to learn to turn the fuck down,” laughs Frog. “We all shared a love of The Verve and how Nick McCabe could make the most fucking menacing wall of sound all on his own. I’m reminded of a gig when, by the time we were through, none of our guitars had any strings left on them – we gave it everything. We wanted to be shockingly loud, and while there are rarely any ten minute instrumental parts to our songs these days, it’s still lurking inside us. I’m sure.”
Perhaps the bassist is alluding to album highlight, ‘Start As We Mean To’, a barely repressed howl of introspective beauty and explosive guitar brutality that recalls the bands beloved Explosions In The Sky. Then there’s the Frog penned, ‘Stutter’ (perhaps the most touching song ever penned to concern folk wanting to “get their ends away”), or the savage, hook laden lead off single ‘Outwards’ (which features the kind of snarling guitar hook more attune to breaking bones than bolstering choruses). It’s a record with ideas and innovation crammed into every nook and cranny, yet it’s one of the bands oldest songs - the galloping punk rock stride ‘Hometown Strategies’ - that best drafts the brutal blueprint of ‘Not Enough Night’.
“The songs are about anger and frustration,” confirms Alan. “When we were making the album, above all, our shit jobs influenced us – get to rehearsals knackered after work: more motivation to get the fuck out of those jobs. Work harder. Push yourself. I want Kubichek! to be remembered for more than an album and twenty fucking wank remixes which no-one actually likes. When I started buying Oasis records, the b-sides were always the reason you actually parted with your cash, not the a-sides – you’d already heard those a million times on the radio or on the telly.”
But – unquestionably! - the albums crowning glory is the jolting, jarring, yet utterly adorable indie pop single, ‘Nightjoy’. Already a key fixture of indie clubs up and down the country, and complete with a chorus lifted from a Jack Kerouac quote in Dick Hebdige’s seminal youth cult tome, ‘Subculture: the meaning of style’ (“not enough ecstasy for me, not enough life, joy, kicks, darkness, music, not enough night”), if there’s a more evocative expression of not wanting to miss one jot of life’s glamour, sass and thrill, then really, someone could have bothered mentioning the Clash had reformed. For all their noise. For all their grizzle. It’s undisputable evidence that this is a band bound by razor sharp pop hooks.
“The harder we work, the more we challenge our songs,” grins Alan. “Making the record, those were some of the moments when I realised how good we were – I’d go to the practice on my own to hear what the other guys had recorded and I’d just end up with the widest grin on my face. When I heard the first version of ‘Stutter’ I though it was one of the best songs I’d heard – I can say that because I didn’t write any of it – It just totally blew me away. I think I actually hugged Frog…
Many a good band has teetered along the boundary of greatness, but it’s the great band – those who strut and soar onto the plateau of specialness - that can be honest and articulate about their reasons for being. Dissecting their very being and sifting the noise for meaning and sense – it’s those bands who can truly profess to being more than merely a bunch of dudes with guitars and songs. With that in mind, why do Kubichek! exist?
“We’ll always try to do everything on our own terms,” says Frog, “and we’ll always try not to do anything to sell ourselves out - yet if one day we do, we’ll always be completely honest about it. We won’t promise you anything and we won’t lie you…” The singer doesn’t seem done. “We exist,” he says, chewing his words, “to be our own perfect band.”
You hold in your hands the UK’s best indie rock debut of the year; Mission accomplished.